Posted on 08/18/2010 1:27:31 PM PDT by rosettasister
The ancient Egyptian toolboxes didn’t have precise, sophisticated measuring instruments like we have today … or did they?
Christopher Dunn examines that question in his new book, “Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs.”
Dunn has made nine trips to Egypt since 1986, and each time he’s amazed at the precision of the columns, tunnels and statues. He brushes aside conventional thinking, and suggests the ancient Egyptians used highly refined tools and mega-machines.
“There’s more going on here than meets the eye,” he said.
A manufacturing engineer by trade, Dunn works as human resources director at Danville Metal Stamping.
His second book, a 400-page paperback, came out in June, but it’s already getting five-star reviews on http://www.amazon.com
And, despite its intimidating title, Dunn said it’s not an engineering textbook. The average reader would be able to follow it.
Judd Peck, president of Danville Metal Stamping, has accompanied Dunn to Egypt three times, and wrote one of the forewords.
“It’s great,” he said of the book.
The traditional explanation of how the pyramids were built, for example — by men rolling 60-ton granite on logs — doesn’t fit the evidence.
“There are huge implications that just boggle the mind — what they were able to do and how sophisticated they were,” he said, referring to the ancient Egyptians.
The idea that the Egyptians had advanced tools disrupts people’s linear view of history, that civilizations get more sophisticated through the years, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at commercial-news.com ...
Dunn's pyramid odyssey began in 1977 when he read Peter Tompkins' book, Secrets of the Great Pyramid.
See also:
Edgar Cayce’s Story of the “Temple of Sacrifice” and the “Temple Beautiful”
Ping
Good thing he has other interests, the American economy just doesn't need people like Christopher Dunn.
IBTHTP
It’s amazing how precise and careful you can be when your life is in the balance.....................
Proof reading which is marginal at best on the fritz
And if we did, guest workers (who most likely would pay no or partial taxes) or illegal aliens (visa overstays) would get the job.
I get the impression that this guy would look at Jean-Francois Millet’s “The Gleaners” and say something like, “God - he didn’t even have PhotoShop?!”
If you know math and have lots of grunt power available you don’t need space aliens to build a pyramind.
Note verse 6. That is God’s opinion, too.........
Genesis 11 (New International Version)
Genesis 11
The Tower of Babel
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9 That is why it was called Babel [c] —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
“I had a Mentor, A Dutch Engineer, a very bright Guy. His take on these Matters is, if you have enough time and enough people nothing is impossible.”
Did he have anything to say about capitalization?
Is this why there are no Trees in Iraq? Thanks for providing the answer, love Little Bill.
I’d like to read the book.
I think he is correct about the Ancient Egyptians using fairly sophisticated tools and gadgets to build their monuments.
But he lost me when he starts going into theories about the Pyramids being energy machines.
And when he questions whether or not these were the products of an earlier, older civilization, my response is RUBBISH!
For some weird reason, many people feel that people who lived only a relatively short time ago, were less intelligent than people living today and anything built then has to be the product of space aliens or people from Atlantis. RUBBISH.
There are a few, common sense answers. For example, clustered around Cairo there are about 100 other pyramids, some of which failed due to engineering error, and from oldest to relatively newest, you can see how they evolved over time.
Second, some years ago, the Smithsonian figured out how to move large stone blocks much faster, and with much less manpower. In brief, they took four sections of wood, rounded on the outside, and used wooden pins to create a “wheel” around the block. With two such wheels, a small number of men can move a very heavy block quickly.
To make a pyramid, once you lay the base stones, you build a dirt ramp around it. Dirt ramps were very well known technology of the period. You roll the stones up the ramp to the top of the pyramid, then remove the wooden wheels and make small adjustments. When that layer is done, enlarge the dirt ramp. After the capstone is emplaced, remove the dirt and you have a pyramid.
This also allows for very precise measurements as the pyramid is constructed.
As far as the stones themselves went, it is known that from the quarry, they were prepared at a settlement of masons to be just the right size, then loaded aboard expendable skiffs to be taken down river. They used a new skiff for each block, as they weren’t worth hauling back upriver.
Far more difficult was the temple at Karnak, a cumulative affair that involved at least 30 Pharaohs, and was the main attraction of a major city.
The ability of the Egyptians to do this was based on a strange phenomenon. The annual flood of the Nile watered and fertilized a great agricultural expanse once a year. After that huge crop came in, they had little to do the rest of the year, which meant that they had an abundance of labor for any great project they wished to do.
This explains ornate carvings and great attention to detail found far more in artists than engineers.
What manner of engineer becomes a human resources anything? I'm an engineer. That would be like selling my soul. I'd just as soon sweep floors.
I've been a human resources problem.
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